Government CIO discusses how Canada is making progress on digital transformation
On this episode of Leading Questions LIVE, Siobhan Benita speaks to Dominic Rochon, Canada’s chief information officer.
They discuss Rochon’s broad mandate, which includes service delivery, security and privacy, as well as his current priorities such as improving digital services, enhancing cybersecurity, and modernising legacy systems.
Rochon touches upon Canada’s past technological failures and controversies, and stresses the role of collaboration, both within government and with provincial governments and the private sector, to bring public services into a new era of human-centred service design. The conversation also covers how to professionalise the digital workforce and implement more agile procurement practices to keep pace with technological advancements.
“In the financial world…chief financial officers have to get certifications and have to keep those certifications up to date,” Rochon said. “In the federal government, that is not the case for the digital world. I’d like to explore how we get to that, particularly given how fast technology is evolving.”
He highlights how such an approach is particularly needed if government is to make the most of technologies such as artificial intelligence.
“If you can’t get out of the technical debt that your department has accumulated over time, you’re never going to get to that transformation. But similarly… if you actually don’t understand the type of data that you have, forget about trying to adopt artificial intelligence, for example,” he commented.
“So it’s a question of getting a better understanding of the lay of the land, making sure that each department and agency understands where they fit, and what the path is [for] transformation projects.”
This episode also previews AccelerateGOV, Global Government Forum’s annual conference held in Ottawa, where digital leaders from around the world gather to discuss how governments can overcome challenges to realise the opportunities of digital transformation.
Public servants can register for free to attend AccelerateGOV, taking place at the Shaw Centre on 21 October.
Listen to the podcast in full to hear about how Rochon is leading the way to make digital transformation happen.
About Richard Johnstone
Richard Johnstone is the executive editor of Global Government Forum, where he helps to produce editorial analysis and insight for the title’s audience of public servants around the world. Before joining GGF, he spent nearly five years at UK-based title Civil Service World, latterly as acting editor, and has worked in public policy journalism throughout his career.
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